


Down to Wonderland

by Jinxa15



Series: New Parts for a Old Frame [1]
Category: Motorcity (Cartoon)
Genre: Chuck and Claire talking, Closeted Bisexual!Chuck, Closeted Claire, Developing Friendships, Friendship, Gen, I have no idea how to tag, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Pre-A Better Tomorrow, Secrets, Some Chuck Backstory, bisexual!Chuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 18:00:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16000448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jinxa15/pseuds/Jinxa15
Summary: “Julie told me you were from Deluxe.”Chuck could have had a good life in Deluxe if he stayed up in his pod, working for Kane, and eating his jelly cubes. He could have had a good life, but then his best friend went down to Motorcity. That changed everything in Chuck's life.





	Down to Wonderland

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, just a quick note before we begin. This is my first fanfiction in the Motorcity fandom and its the first thing I've written in a long time (last time I wrote anything was in 2012). If things seem weird, I'm sorry I am really out of practice. Also, this is a friendship fic, at least I hope it comes off that way. I got really annoyed with the fact that Claire and Chuck's relationship was played just for laughs when there was something there to grow on, so this is me trying to fix some part of that.

“You’re from Deluxe, right?”

Chuck typing stopped suddenly. He looked up from the green screen of Mutt’s blueprints in front of him to Claire. She was sitting across from him, elbow on the table and her chin resting on the top of her hand. He hadn’t even noticed that she was sitting across from him since he had gotten so involved with the idea for Mutt he and Mike had been throwing around recently.

Chuck licked his lips as he looked back at the Deluxian girl across from him. The sparks of excitement were crackling under his skin, sending tingles up his spine and making knots form inside of his body.

“…Um, what?” He actually missed what she had said.

Claire tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him. “Julie told me you were from Deluxe.”

The tingles running through his body stopped suddenly.

“Uh…yeah.” He nodded, his eyes moving away from Claire. Most of the Burners were from Deluxe, except Texas. He was the only one of the Burners actually born and raised in Motorcity. Chuck found himself looking around the room while trying to avoid looking at her. The place was surprisingly empty for once.

Jacob was out making deliveries around the city, Texas could be heard from outside having a loud (and one-sided) conversation with Dutch about a movie he had watched, and Mike had gone out to get pizza with Julie tagging along (mainly to ensure that he actually picked up the pineapple pizza she had requested), which left Chuck and Claire alone for the first time in a while.

“So…what did you do?” Chuck turned his attention back to Claire at her question. “Up in Deluxe. What was your life like?”

His right hand made its way up to his left shoulder, giving a gentle squeeze to calm the shakiness that was starting to bubble in his body. “I was a just techie…”

No one ever asked what he did in Deluxe. Mike already knew, Texas and Jacob simply never asked, and Julie and Dutch had accepted his simple answer had been enough.

That answer wasn’t enough for Claire though. One of her eyebrows rose as she stared at him, waiting for him to continue on. Chuck pressed his lips before sighing. “…I worked for R&D. Nothing too important, I just took care of the little things and touched up any mistakes before they officially left the department and went live.”

Her suspicious look vanished and her eyes went wide. “Wait, you worked for R&D?” 

“Y-yeah.” He licked his lips again.

She stared at him, blinking twice. “You gave up a position at R&D, for…this?”

He looked at her sharply. “Yes, and I wouldn’t change a thing.” His words came out in his serious tone, one he rarely used. It actually caused Claire’s surprise to grow even more.

He knew what his life could have been like. He could have worked in the best department in Deluxe, could have had one of the best pods, and could have had one of the better lives in Deluxe. He could have had a safe and successful life.

“Then why?” She asked him. “Why come down here when Deluxe is so safe?”

Chuck pressed his lips. “…Mike was here.”

“Mike?” Claire looked at him completely confused.

“We…we were podmates, before he headed off for cadet training…”

There was so much more than just friends who shared a pod. They had been podmates since they were kids when they were placed in the foster system. They had shared a room for years before they were pushed out of the system and forced to take a new pod. They had just decided to keep living that way. Things only started to change when Mike had to leave for his cadet training, but Mike leaving Deluxe had completely turned Chuck’s world upside down.

“…The day he decided to stay down here he sent me a message and told me what had happened.” Chuck continued on as he continued to grip onto his shoulder. “The next day I was brought down for questioning by the Elites. They asked me a whole bunch of stuff, mainly trying to figure out how long Mike’s betrayal of Kane had been brewing, and I just told them the truth. None of it was planned, Mike idolized Kane, and the only thing that made Mike turn on Kane was his own morals.”

The confusion on Claire’s face just kept deepening. “And that lead you to coming down here?”

“I…I just couldn’t stay up there.”

Not without Mike. Without Mike, he was completely alone.

“Not when Mike wasn’t there right?” Claire spoke softly, confusion seeming to melt away at her words. She was smiling now and the sparks returned throughout his body, though they were less intense and less wide spread then they usually were.  

Chuck smiled at her and turned his attention back to his screen, assuming he had satisfied Claire’s question. He needed to get the plans done since he had told Mike that they would be done today.

The blond began his typing again while Claire turned her attention to the windows. One of the few things she liked about Motorcity was (from the inside at least) it was very pretty with all of the colors. “You kind of make it all sound like a story of romance.”

A squeak escaped Chuck’s lips.

And not his usual  _Mike just hit the gas too hard and it scared me_ squeak.

It was a squeak like Claire had just walked in on Chuck doing something secretive.

Claire stared at Chuck, who was now frozen in complete shock with his fingers hovering over his keys. “…Chuck…” She wasn’t sure what to make of the squeak, but her curiosity just couldn’t be stopped at this point. She needed to know more about what the blond was keeping locked up inside himself.

“Ilikeyou.” He said quickly. Claire just narrowed her eyes on him with a look of “tell me something I don’t know”.

Chuck gulped at the look on her face before letting out a shaking breathe. “And…and I like Mike too…”

Claire’s confusion returned to her face. “…As a friend?”

The blond pressed his lips. Part of him wanted to lie, just keep everything locked up and hidden, but he doubted that Claire would simply accept his answers if he tried. “…no.” He sighed heavily, his grip on his shoulder getting tighter and tighter. He could feel his own nails digging into his skin through his shirt. “I like both of you, but it’s…it’s a different kind of…“feeling” I have for you both…”

 Claire’s face looked a little broken by everything rushing through her head.

She stared at Chuck for a long moment. The blond started holding his breath as he waited, and waited, and waited for her to say…something.

Finally, after what felt like the longest minute in Chuck’s life, she spoke.

“…You can do that?”

Chuck licked his lips. They were growing dry and he knew the licking them wasn’t helping, but this wasn’t a good time to just get up and dig out the chapstick Julie gave him a few weeks ago. “I can. I can’t speak for everyone on that. It’s…not really a choice though.”

The confusion never left Claire’s face.

He knew why she was confused by what he was telling her. This wasn’t what people talked about up in Deluxe, mainly because Kane didn’t want anyone talking about anything like that.

Kane’s control invaded almost every aspect of one’s personal lives. He decided what people were allowed to know, what the Kane TV stations were allowed to broadcast, and what kids were allowed to learn in school.

Chuck knew what kind of education Kane put out because he had lived through it and believed it all to be true, but then he came down to Motorcity.

Claire was quiet for a moment, biting down on her lower lip and her eyes bounced between her two hands. “So you like both guys and girls?”

“Yeah. Always have, always will.” Chuck nodded at her question. “I didn’t really think of it as a problem, heck I thought it was how everyone was, till we had to watch the sex ed. vid from Kane which...was an awful wake-up.” Just thinking about that video sent shivers up his spine. It was uncomfortable to watch it in a room full of other thirteen year-olds, but when it got to the part about marriage and kids-

Chuck gipped his shoulder, trying to use the pain to pull himself out of the bad memory.

There was still so much baggage left over from when he was up in Deluxe. So much that he was still trying to work out.

“I thought I could lie to myself, make myself fit in with the system, and that I would just go through with the sterilization when I got older if I didn’t meet a girl who liked me and who would marry me.” He let go of his shoulder, moving it back down to his lap and forcing himself to keep it there.  “But when Mike left…it forced me to take a hard look at what in Deluxe made me happy, and there wasn’t anything that made me truly happy.”

He could have had a good job, could have gotten a better pod if he worked hard for it, and could have been one of the men respected by all. He could have had a good life by the standards of Deluxe, but Chuck doubted that it would make him truly happy. The only thing that had made him happy up there was Mike.

So he went after Mike. He was Chuck’s white rabbit who brought him down the hole to a city full of both danger and wonder. 

He knew it wasn’t perfect, but it was better than pretending he could fit in with the Deluxe’s society.

“And that’s normal down here?” Claire asked, changing the subject away from Chuck’s story. “For someone like both girls and boys?”

“Yeah, it’s one kind of normal.” Chuck shrugged. “There are men who like men, people who don’t have any kind of attraction for someone, and the relationship Kane promotes are normal too, but…it’s not the only kind of relationship people can have.” It took him a while to break from the idea that there was only one way and then he had to keep reminding himself that what Kane taught wasn’t wrong, it had just been twisted by a madman who didn’t want people stepping outside his type of normal.

“So, if you like both me and Mike… Why don’t you get all weird around Mike like you do with me normally?”

Chuck found himself biting his lower lip. He fell silent as he placed his hand over his mouth, thinking about Claire’s words. He could feel his lips growing drier the more abused them. “I just feel different about you guys...” He pulled his hand away from his mouth. His eye moved down to look at the table’s surface. “I have an attraction to you both, but it’s a different feeling when I’m around you guys.”

With Claire, it was like fireworks going off inside of him. From the moment he met her, he had developed an attraction to her. She caused a rush of excitement and joy burst throughout his body whenever he saw her, which could make him act like a complete fool.

Maybe it was just because of the conversation they were having that was causing those sparks to be muted for the moment.

With Mike, it was like a warm fire. Always there, always burning, and always comforting whenever warmth was needed. He had never really noticed it until Mike had gone off to cadet training and left a chill in Chuck. He blamed it on him simply missing his friend and podmate, but then Mike left Deluxe and sent that message to Chuck…that was when a freezing cold filled him and remained until he finally bit the bullet to rush down to Motorcity.

“So if you like us both, why don’t you go after Mike?” Claire still looked confused, but she seemed like she was trying to make sense of everything Chuck had told her.

“…Mike, just, has no interest in me…or anyone.” Chuck rubbed his face, pulling the skin of his face as he dragged it down and back into his lap.

Claire simply let out a loud sigh. She clearly didn’t believe him. “And what makes you so sure about that?” She asked. “I know the guy shows like, no interest in…anyone, but you’re just going to give up on him like that?”

“Yep.” Chuck was just a little too quick with his answer.

Claire’s eyebrows shifted again. She tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes on him. “Why?”

He pressed his lips and focused his eyes down on the table. “I asked him.”

Claire’s eyes went wide again. “What? When?” She was so eager and excited for the answer. He couldn’t understand why when it was obvious how this story was going to end.

“Maybe a week or two after I arrived down here. That’s kind of when it all really started sinking in, but then I met Ruby and Thurman, before they got me into LARPing, and they kind of explained the types of sexuality that Kane was keeping secret about, and when I had an idea about myself I just went out on a limb and asked Mike what he thought about dating anyone.” Chuck explained. His hand had returned to his shoulder, giving it another squeeze. “I didn’t say anything about myself, I just…I just needed to know what he thought about dating first.”

Claire had propped her elbows up on the table, anticipating the next part of the story. “And…”

Chuck sighed heavily. He could feel the dread filling him quickly. This wasn’t going to be fun. “And his response was…“relationships are kind of annoying, so…what’s the point?”

He could hear Mike’s voice in his head as he quoted his friend. It was just so casual, lacking emotion and having no idea just how much he had hurt his friend. Hell he hadn’t even looked up from Mutt’s engine when Chuck had asked him the question.

Claire pressed her lips, falling back into the seat, and one of her hands went to her chest to right over her heart. “…ouch.”

The blond male just nodded at her words. “Yep.” He picked up his forgotten cup of coffee. He swirled the dark drink around in its mug, just focusing on something that would keep him from diving too far into the pain that was spreading through his chest at the memory running through his head.

It had hurt, it had hurt like hell back then, and it still hurt now, but not like it used to. 

“Oh man…” Claire looked at him. “I am hurting just from hearing that.”

“Yeah…” He nodded again. “I went to see Ruby after that. Mike…Mike didn’t think much on anything too much…” He said before taking a sip of the cold drink. His face scrunched up at the taste of the cold and bitter drink, but that didn’t stop him from continuing to drink it. Coffee was coffee, and it was one of the few things Jacob couldn’t ruin. 

“And what happened next?”

Chuck set his mug down on the table, wrapping both his hands around the cup.  He sighed and looked down at the cup in his hand. “I cried my eyes out and passed out on Ruby’s couch. I ended up staying with her all weekend.”

“Oh…” She looked back down at the table.

He sighed deeply. “Yeah…it was a really bad day after that.”

That day hadn’t been great. The weekend at least went better. Ruby had let him stay of her couch for the weekend, but she hadn’t let him just mope around. She called Thurman and the two had dragged him out to join their LARPing event. That was the weekend in which Lord Vanquisher had been created.

At least something good came out of him getting away from Mike for a weekend.

A silence fell over the room. Claire stared at Chuck, who was still looking down at his mug.

“And that’s it? You’re just not going to do anything about your feelings for him?” Claire finally spoke, breaking the silence. 

Chuck sighed, setting his mug down and running his hand through his bangs to push them up. “It’s easier this way.” He gripped his bangs tightly and pulled at his hair, focusing on the slight pain for a moment before letting his hair go. “And these feelings never seem to stop. They’re here, still. Believe me, I don’t want to feel this way about him, but I can’t turn them off. All I can do is hope that maybe they will all just…go away…”

Claire fell quiet at his words. She stared down at her hands, picking at her nails and biting her lower lip. Chuck might have found it adorable, if he wasn’t coming down from the waves of emotion and thought that he had just allowed himself to ramble on about to her.

“I’m sorry if things got a little…odd, with me rambling and all that.” Things had just kind of burst like the sink breaking and causing water to go everywhere. It caused a huge mess, which was what Chuck felt like he had just made.

“It’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s been…informative.” Claire was still picking at her nails and her eyes remained on her hands. Chuck pressed his lips and looked at his own hands.

This was not what he was expecting when he woke up this morning.

“Hey Chuck.”

Chuck looked up from his hands to Claire. She was looking right at him. The look on her face wasn’t cute or serious, but one of fear. Her shoulders had started shaking and she looked like she was struggling to breathe.

“You said that guys can like guys and that it’s just another type of normal…” Her words came out slowly, like she was struggling to control her words. “So…is it normal to for girls to like girls too?”

Chuck stared at her was her words sank into his bones.

“Yeah. That’s normal.” He nodded, trying to sound gentle but he sounded a little too shocked. “Cla-”

“We’re back!” Mike’s shouts from outside caused both Claire and Chuck to jump in their seats. The two looked out the window to see Mutt and 9 Lives out front. How neither of them noticed their friends cars pull up, Chuck had no idea. 

“And we’ve got pineapple!” Julie called out cheerfully, which earned a groan from Texas.

“Jules, keep that away from Texas unless you really want to lose it!” Dutch called out from behind his welding mask.

Chuck sighed and looked away from the window. He looked back at Claire, but she was still looking out the window and her eyes were following Julie, who was protecting her own box of pizza from Texas. It only took him a second before something new clicked inside his head.

Oh…

Claire pressed her lips and forced herself to look away from the window. She looked back at him, holding her breath tightly. “Please-”

“I won’t.” There was no hesitation. He wasn’t going to say anything about what happened between them. He wasn’t ready to tell his friends about his own sexuality, and it wasn’t his place to tell anyone else about Claire’s recent revelation.

“Thanks.” Claire smiled back at him. “I won’t either.”

“Hey Chuckles, hey Claire.” Mike walked into the room, pizza boxes in hand and a smile on his face. Chuck looked up at his friend, smiling back at him. The warmth was beginning from the center of his chest and throughout his body.

This, this was what set his feelings for Mike and Claire apart.

This was the feeling that followed him almost everywhere he went and always seemed far more noticeable on some days when compared to others.

Mike set it down on the table and looked at the green screen that Chuck had never closed even when he had been talking to Claire. “Still working on the stuff Mutt bro?”

“Oh!” Chuck looked back at the screen in front of him. He had completely forgotten about what he had been working on before. “Yeah… I kind of got distracted.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

“That’s on me.” Claire spoke up. “We kind of got talking about…stuff.”

Mike looked between the two before smiling. Chuck knew that smile, it was the same smile he had given Chuck when he had suggested the blond should stay behind with Claire when Kane was creating a deep freeze in Motorcity. It had been a blessing back then, but not now.

“Hey, no problem.” He clapped his hand over Chuck’s shoulder. Chuck held back a grunt of pain. He had been gripping so hard on his shoulder he had probably left a bruise or some kind of scratches on his shoulder. “We can work on the updates tonight, after pizza.”

“Annie! Get your devil fruit away from me!” Texas shouted from the living room, where the rest of the gang was starting to settle in for their dinner.

A smack and grunt from Texas could be heard, followed by Julie’s voice. “Shut up Texas! It’s Julie, and it’s good pizza!”

“Nope, nope, nope!” Texas’s shouts only continued to grow louder.

Mike let out a chuckled sigh before looking back at Chuck and Claire. “Best to grab a slice now Claire, if you really want to try it. Texas may try to toss it out the window, again.”

“Well, Jules likes it so it should be good.” Chuck had to bite his lips to keep his laugh. No one in the gang understood how Julie could like the pizza.

Claire got up from the table and headed over to the living room, where everyone else was starting to argue over what kind of a movie they were going to watch tonight. Mike began following her, but stopped when he realized that Chuck was back to working on his screen.

“Hey man, you gonna join us?” Mike asked.

Chuck looked up at his friend and smile. “Yeah, I’m coming.” He closed up his screen and followed Mike into the living room, rubbing the back of his neck. Texas was in the middle of getting one of the game system set up while Dutch was digging through their box of old video games.

Julie and Claire were sitting on the sofa. Julie was happily eating her own slice of pizza, but Claire was staring at the food in front of her.

Chuck sat down in the beat-up loveseat while Mike made up two plates. He handed one plate off to

“So…what is pineapple exactly?” She looked between Julie and Chuck.  

“It’s a fruit.” Julie answered, mid-chew, covering her mouth with her hand.

Claire just looked more confused. “…So this is a type of dessert?”

A chuckle escaped from Mike’s lips. “No…it’s just a different kind of pizza.”

Claire looked at the two and then back at the pizza in front of her. “But why would you do something like that?”

“Thank you!” Dutch cried out.

“Tiny, can we trade Angie in for the Deluxian?” Texas’s was answered by Julie throwing her half-eaten piece of pizza at him. “DEVIL FRUIT!” He cried out loudly as he fell back against the floor of the living room.

Mike just laughed at the whole thing as he placed his arm over the top of the loveseat. His fingers were just barely brushing up against the back of Chuck’s neck lazily. The blond pressed his lips, glancing at Mike from the corner of his eye. Mike was just watching Texas and Dutch as they started up the game system.

He didn’t even know what he was doing.

Chuck bit down on his pizza and hunched his back slightly, trying to put some distance between Mike’s fingers and his neck. His back was going to be killing him later, but he just couldn’t pretend the little touches didn’t make him giggle a little inside. It was just too much, given everything else that had happened earlier in the day.

He kept his eyes locked on the screen when Dutch and Texas booted up one of the old pixelated games and just pretended that he wasn’t completely worn out from the day.

Claire glanced over at the loveseat. Chuck looked over at her from the corner of his eye. The two gave each other a nod before going back to pretending they were just fine.

Claire picked up the pizza and took a bite of it, making sure to get a piece of pineapple as well. She chewed for a short moment before setting the table.

“Jules, I love you and I’m sorry, but ew…”

Texas laughed, not even taking his eyes off the screen. “Yeah, we’re keeping the Deluxe girl over you Mary.”

He got Claire’s pineapple pizza thrown at him.

**[-X-]**

 

It was late. Julie had taken Claire back up to Deluxe, Texas had gone home, and Dutch had headed to his room for the night. Mike was doing a double check on Mutt, and Chuck was staring at his screen.

He groaned and rubbed his eyes. He had been staring at Mutt’s blueprints on his screen for a far too long, trying to put all the pieces that he and Mike had discussed into it. They could build everything Mike and Chuck had planned, the problem was making all fit into their car.

_Mike’s car._

Mutt was Mike’s car.

“You’ve got your own already man…” He muttered to himself. Not that he could do anything with a car he couldn’t drive.

There was a light knock at his door. “Come on it.” He looked up as the door opened and Mike walked into the room.  “Oh, hey Mikey.” He smiled up at his friend, turning in his office chair.

“Hey man.” Mike moved and sat down on the edge of Chuck’s bed.  Chuck thought nothing of his friend doing so. “You’re still working on Chopper?” He looked at the screen.

“Yeah, among other things…” Chuck sighed, turning his attention back to the screen. “I’m just trying to figure out how to fit everything into Mutt.”

“There’s no rushed to get it all done now. Besides, it’d be hard to make it work with Mutt right now with her being in one piece.” Mike said but

“Give it a week and we’ll be rebuilding her.” The blond muttered, not looking away from his screen or stopping his typing.

Mike rolled his eyes at his friend. “Hey, I don’t wreck her that much.”

Chuck’s fingers stopped typing. He looked over his shoulder, pushing his bangs out of his face to eye his best friend with a sharp look. “Mike…”

“Chuck…” The brunet teased, crossing his arms over his chest and smirking as he looked back at Chuck. The two stared at each other, neither blinking, for a long moment before Mike cracked and allowed himself to laugh, which caused Chuck to break and start laughing as well. “Okay, I crash Mutt…a lot. It’s not always my fault though.”

“Just most of the time.” Chuck added quickly.

Mike rolled his eyes before looking back at his friend. “But…we also don’t have to add the Chopper to Mutt.”

“Yeah we don’t have to, but it would be  _so_  cool…” Chuck actually let out a little giggle. He knew how crazy the idea was, but there were benefits to the idea. There would be a quick escape for Mike, just in case they needed to leave Mutt behind for any reason.

Mike couldn’t fight the grin that spread across his face at Chuck’s words. “Yeah, it would.” He agreed. He leaned back slightly as his grin shifted into a smile that made Chuck’s own fall a bit. The smile on Mike’s face was the same one he had when he had learned Claire and Chuck had been talking earlier. “So, what happened with you and Claire today?”

“Oh, um…” Chuck licked his lips. Damn, he forgot about his chapstick again…

He turned in his seat again so he was facing Mike completely. “She asked me about Deluxe. Mainly, what I did up there before I came down here.”

The smile on Mike’s face completely vanished. He straightened himself back up and placed his hands on his legs.

“And…it was all good?” He asked hesitantly.

Chuck nodded at Mike’s question. “Yeah. It was actually kind of nice to just talk about it all...” He said, dancing around the actual talk he had with Claire. There was no way he was telling Mike anything else about what they had talked about and what they had opened up to each other about. He wasn’t ready to tell his best friend anything about his sexuality, and he wasn’t when he would be ready to do so.

Mike was quiet for a moment before he finally spoke.

“…That’s good.” Chuck looked at Mike, but he was looking around Chuck’s room, tapping his hand on his leg. A calm silence came over the room, with the only sound being Mike’s tapping before it suddenly stopped. “Do you miss it?”

Chuck sighed and leaned back in his chair, turning in it. He ran his hands through his hair, tugging at strands of it. He hadn’t been expecting to have another similar conversation like this again today “…No. I kind of miss our pod, but I don’t miss a whole lot outside of that.”

Talking about Deluxe wasn’t always easy for them mainly because they had to admit there were some things about Deluxe they missed. He did miss the pod they shared together, but that only popped up occasionally whenever being around the Burners got to be a little too much.

Mike chuckled, his smile returning at Chuck’s words. “What? You miss arguing over what kind of cubes we’d have for dinner?” Chuck shook his head, laughing along with Mike. That had been one of the weird spats they had when they lived together.  

“No, though sometimes I’d take them over Jacob’s cooking.” The blond laughed at his own words before sighing. He stretched his legs out and turned his eyes were up to ceiling of his room. “I miss that weird time when we just got the pod and we were just getting settled in before you headed off for training.”

That was their first step towards independence and carving out their own lives, together of course though. When they were just getting started, it was all new and exciting.

That was when they were still believed in the ideas that Deluxe was perfect.  

Looking back on it now, it was easy to see how lacking Kane’s society was, but there was still a joy linked to those old memories. There was no going back to Deluxe for them, but there was some good in the past.

“You really miss the pod?” Mike asked in a rather quiet tone.

Chuck nodded. “It wasn’t horrible…”

Mike was quiet for a moment, biting his lower lip before smiling softly. “No, it wasn’t…” He agreed before letting out a loud yawn, rubbing his eye with the back of his hand.

Chuck looked at his friend and pushed his foot against the other young man’s knee. “Go to bed Mike.” He tuned in his seat so he was facing his screen again. “You’re just going to hate yourself in the morning if you stay up any later.” He pointed out. He knew just how Mike could get when he went to bed late. He would either be grumpy for getting up at his usual six am time or for sleeping in later then he usually did, even if he needed it.

“Yeah, yeah…” Mike sighed as got up from Chuck’s bed, leaning over to give his friend a quick but tight one-armed hug. “Night Chuckles.” He muttered softly. Chuck had to bite the inside of his cheek as Mike pulled away, taking the warmth away with him.

He bit down on his cheek a little harder before letting it go and focusing his eyes back on the screen in front of him. Mike headed for the door, opening it and stepping through the doorway, but kept his head in the room.

“By the way…” Chuck looked back at his friend. Mike smirking back at the blond, and it was a smirk that had Chuck worried. “You’ve got practice tomorrow. So you should get some sleep as well.”

“Mike!” Chuck’s eyes went wide and he went to stand, but Mike closed the door and escaping off to his own room.

Now alone in his room again the blond sighed to himself. He sat back down in his chair, pouting. “Could have told me that earlier…” He muttered to himself. He looked at his screen and digital clock in the corner of the screen. For his personal sleep schedule, it wasn’t that late, but he was going to be getting up at six in the morning now.   

He closed the screen, moving from his chair to turn off the light and crawling into his bed. He stared up into the darkness of the room. His whole body felt like lead, still worn out from his talk with Claire, but sleep just wasn’t coming to him.

He sighed to himself and rubbed his face.

He could feel so much twisting within him, like the gears shifting in Mutt. It was change: shifting and uncomfortable change.

Chuck reached up to pull tightly at his bangs.

It was a feeling of déjà vu. It was just like when he had got back to the pod and opened up his message box to find the one from Mike that changed everything.

The message…

He sat up and leaned over to open the drawer on his nightstand. He dug around the clutter-filled drawer, pushing pencils, hair ties, and even finding his lost chapstick before pushing it aside. After a little more digging he pulled out a simple white and wireless earbud. He only had the one now; the other had been lost to the streets of Motorcity months ago.

He placed the bud into his ear and opened up his screen, his keyboard popping up right away. He typed into it hooking up his earbud and pulling up still picture onto his screen. There was a gray play symbol plastered over it. Chuck took a deep breath before tapping the screen to start the video.

The black cut suddenly, revealing a tired and worn out looking Mike on the lines of the screen.

_**“Hey buddy. It’s me, though I guess you can see that.”**  Mike laughed at himself, but it was forced at he sounded so tired. He looked like a mess, his hair was all over the place, his cadet jacket was missing, and his face was covered in a layer of dust._

_The brunet took a deep breath and his smile dropped. **“I…some stuff happened today. Kane…Kane wanted me to get rid of buildings, he said they were abandoned, but they weren’t. There were people there still, families…”**  He licked his lips, rubbing his eye with one hand.  **“I…I couldn’t do it. Things got heated, and-and I was placed under arrest, and I ran…”**_

_**Mike was silent for a long moment, staring down away from the screen before turning back to it.** _

_**“There’s no good reason for me to go back, so…I’m staying down here.”**  He stared right at the screen, his face adding to the seriousness of his words.  **“I know, I know, I’m crazy and I just threw away my whole life, but…but I can’t be a part of Deluxe, not like this. I won’t be a part of Kane’s plan if it involves hurting innocent people. So, I’m going to stay here and help these people.”**_

_**“I’m sorry Chuck, but I-I have to do this. Trust me when I say this is not how I imagined my day going when I got up.”** His eyes looked wet as he spoke. He rubbed his eyes, groaning to himself.  _

Chuck still blamed it on the dust his friend was surrounded in.

Mike Chilton never cried. That was Chuck’s job.

Chuck blinked as he watched the screen, feeling tears of his own developing in his eyes.

 _Mike took another breath, looking back at the screen._  “ ** _I guess…I guess this is good-bye man…”_**

The video ended abruptly after that. Chuck sighed before closing the screen, rubbing his eyes to get rid of the tears that were developing in them. The video had broken him back in Deluxe and it still reopened the wound that seemed to never heal.

Chuck sighed and turned on his side to stare at the wall of his room.

A change was happening within him and it was starting with Claire. He could tell that his feelings for her were starting to fade now that he knew about her own sexuality. He could accept that Claire would never like him and he could accept that she was keeping a secret from her best friend. His feelings for her were already starting to fade like they were nothing now.

So why hadn’t his feelings for Mike changed?

It had been a year since he realized his feelings for his friend, he had chosen to keep his feelings to himself since he learned of Mike’s feelings about dating, and he was just waiting for it all to fade away. But none of this was fading.

Chuck closed his eyes, squeezing them tightly and taking another deep breath.

“Just ignore it. It’ll all be okay…”

**Author's Note:**

> Hey-oh! Thanks for giving this a read! Again, I am really sorry if this came off as super choppy and weird. Any feedback is appreciated and if there is a tag that seems to be missing please let me know. I serious have no idea how to tag anything properly. Again, thanks for the read, and yes there's going to be a follow up for this.


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